17 May 2023

Budget 2023-24

Did the 2023-24 Budget deliver for women’s safety? For those of us working in the sector, there are two key concerns:

Is the Budget providing adequate support for the delivery of violence prevention, intervention, response and recovery services and programs?
And, knowing what we know about the drivers of violence against women, is the Budget working to deliver improved equality for women in the long-term

Women's safety measures

There are two key budget measures aimed specifically at addressing violence against women: ‘women’s safety’ and ‘women’s safety - First Nations women’.

These measures represent new money - that is, money that is additional to the $1.7 billion investment in the October Budget for women’s safety initiatives. With the new National Action Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children yet to be released, it is difficult to determine in isolation if the new money is hitting the right gaps. We would of course have liked to have seen more, and we remain concerned about the effectiveness of the delivery of some initiatives.

That said, we are pleased to see any additional support, and particularly pleased to see the acknowledged need for new additional funds for the First Nations National Action Plan. All up, we see an additional $495.1m for the two budget measures, including initiatives outlined below. AWAVA will continue its work to encourage government engagement and consultation with the sector to ensure funds are being well targeted and fairly distributed.

National Plan

$159 million to extend the National Partnership on Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Responses with state and territory governments.
$24.3 million to pilot an additional referral pathway for the Support for Trafficked People Program.
$8.5 million for initiatives aimed at early intervention, including developing a national perpetrator risk assessment framework for frontline service providers, extending Mensline Changing for Good Service and developing a national perpetrator referral database of services to improve uptake of intervention services.

Women's Safety - First Nations

$145.3 million to support activities which address immediate safety concerns for First Nations women and children who are experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, family and domestic violence.
$23.2 million to partner with local organisations to design, deliver and evaluate community led, place based, trauma aware and culturally responsive healing programs for First Nations children and families impacted by family violence.
$17.6 million to deliver on family safety initiatives under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan.
$7.8 million over 5 years to support the development of a standalone First Nations National Plan for Family Safety, including governance, secretariat and data arrangements.

Migrant women and women on TPVs

$10 million to expand the family violence provisions within the Migration Regulations 1994 to most permanent visa subclasses to ensure that visa applicants do not feel compelled to remain in a violent relationship to be granted a permanent visa. The Government also announced it is extending the current Temporary Visa Holders Experiencing Violence Pilot to January 2025 (paid for using existing funds).

Family law property settlements and international child abduction matters

$33.1 million to fund the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and the Family Court of Western Australia to continue and expand the Family Law Priority Property Pool program nationally.
$13.4 million to extend the Lawyer assisted Family Law Property Mediation program to assist separated couples to mediate and reach agreement on a family law property division.
$7.4 million to introduce a financial assistance scheme to enable eligible respondent parents impacted by international parental child abduction to have equivalent access to legal representation as applicant parents.
$5.3 million for a package of early alternative dispute resolution intervention measures, designed to divert families from contested Hague Convention proceedings and improve safety outcomes.
$5.7 million to improve capability in the Attorney General’s Department to obtain and make evidence about family violence available to the courts in Hague Convention cases.

Sexual Violence

$6.5 million to strengthen sexual assault and consent laws and improve justice responses to sexual violence. This includes funding for a ministerial level national roundtable, an independent national inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission into justice responses to sexual violence across Australia, and establishment of an expert advisory group to inform the inquiry.
$12.1 million to develop and distribute social media resources for young people on consent with advice from an expert advisory group and to support community led sexual violence prevention pilots.

Gender Equality

With the continuation of the Women’s Budget Statement, and a commitment to rolling out gender responsive budgeting over the forthcoming years, women are more visible in this budget than they have been for many previous years. On the back of the prominence given to the Sam Mostyn–led Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce and in response to the crippling cost-of-living crisis, Budget 2023-24 has a focus on women’s economic equality, and on addressing the most pressing economic pressures for the most vulnerable.

In this context, the extension of the single parenting payment, and abolition of ParentsNext are most welcome. It is likely that domestic violence underlies a significant proportion of welfare dependency, and that decreases in income and increases in mutual obligations add additional pressures, further compromising women and children’s safety.

Along with other important – albeit very modest – changes to income support, and further spending on housing, another articulated focus of the budget is on the care economy and workforce – with funds directed to support aged care workers and early childhood educators.

The Budget beds down some important and more urgent investments in long-term gender equality, and they are steps in the right direction even if, for the most part, baby steps. This is by no means a revolutionary budget.

Much more needs to be done in better valuing women’s work across the paid and unpaid economy; making education, training, housing, child care and aged care more accessible and affordable; improving women’s superannuation balances; and in addressing women’s health and reproductive health needs. More also needs to be done in recognising the impacts of racism, ageism, ableism and homo/transphobia.

AWAVA welcomes the many good things in Budget 23-24, but continues to call for more that will both directly assist women and children impacted by violence, as well as for measures embedding gender equality into systems and structures across the community and economy into the future.

Read other responses here: ACOSS, Equality Rights Alliance (ERA), Women in Vocational Education (WAVE), Chief Executive Women, Homelessness Australia, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, National Council of Single Mothers and their Children, People with Disability Australia, and SNAICC.

Around the Country

Listen to 'A very strong budget for women': Sam Mostyn.
A week after far-right protestors and United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet turned up at a council meeting to oppose an IDAHOBIT event, Monash City Council on Thursday announced that it was cancelling a family-friendly Drag Storytime event scheduled for later this month over death threats.
State governments are being forced to strike confidential deals granting taxpayer-funded indemnity to church bodies for child abuse after an inundation of survivors’ claims led commercial insurers to abandon religious institutions in droves.
Watch: A new program in Whyalla is using art to help people deal with the trauma associated with family and domestic violence. The "Unbroken" program brings together 22 women, to create art and share stories.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a controversial anti-trans statement in an interview with British television personality Piers Morgan.
Advocates question federal government's $194 million to address domestic violence in First Nations communities.
The Andrews Labor Government will invest $1.8 million to support the expanded delivery of its Gender and Disability Workforce Development Program, which gives workers the skills to prevent violence against women with disabilities.
First Nations female leaders from across Australia are demanding immediate reform to Western Australia’s approach to youth justice in the wake of riots at the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.

Around the World

Abortion providers in Virginia, Montana and Kansas have filed a federal lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking an order to maintain and expand access to mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used for early abortion and miscarriage.
A Manhattan federal jury found that Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and awarded her $5 million for battery and defamation.
The US Senate has confirmed Dr Geeta Rao Gupta, an Indian-born global leader on gender equity and women’s economic security, as the Ambassador-at-Large for the Office of Global Women’s Issues in the State Department.
Somali humanitarian workers and United Nations officials say women and girls in displaced camps are facing gender-based violence and rape amid the recurring droughts in the country.
Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of the European Union's accession to the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women, completing Parliament's role in this process.
A private member's bill from a Conservative backbench MP is stirring up debate over abortion in Canada, even though the proposed legislation does not mention it once.
The new Chilean law is one of the most comprehensive legal measures in Latin America to support relatives in a region with some of the highest femicide rates in the world.
With women winning only 75 legislative seats out of the 1,459 seats up for grabs at the state and national levels in the 2023 Nigerian general election, a coalition of women’s groups has decried the violence that induced the low turnout of voters recorded in the polls.
Adèle Haenel, the French film star has explained her reasons for quitting the film industry, denouncing the “general complacency” toward “sexual aggressors” like Gérard Depardieu and Roman Polanski.
At least twenty-eight hospitals in Sudan have been attacked since the outbreak of armed conflict on 15 April, including a number of maternity hospitals in Khartoum. This has left tens of thousands of women without access to maternal health services and other forms of medical care.
Young Indigenous girls in rural Guatemala are being forced into motherhood as rampant sexual violence goes unpunished in a country where abortions are illegal.
Newly released South Korean government documents reveal that the sexual exploitation of Korean women continued long after Japan’s colonial rule ended in 1945 — facilitated by the Korean government and in full knowledge of the United States military.

Research and Reports

The Disability Royal Commission has released a research report Care criminalisation of children with disability in child protection systems.
Per Capita has published Sharing the Spoils: A Gender Lens Analysis of the Four Day Week Trial at Our Community.
International Alert has released Breaking the Gender Trap: Challenging patriarchal norms to clear pathways for peace.
West Yorkshire research shows women and girls are affected ‘on daily basis by misogyny and harassment’ and that women should help design UK parks to tackle safety fears.
A new Canadian study has highlighted the toll of economic abuse on rural women – and their resiliency in the face of it.
Published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, research found that in the analysis of patient records, there was a significantly larger percentage of women who had atopic diseases and had a history of being exposed to domestic abuse and violence compared to those who hadn’t.
There has been a tenfold increase in sexual abuse imagery created with webcams and other recording devices worldwide since 2019, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.

Media

Honi Soit writes Not the Church or the State: The Promise of Elsie.
The Conversation reviews At times devastating, always powerful: new SBS drama Safe Home looks at domestic violence with nuance, integrity and care.
Primer reports The Invisible Epidemic Of Brain Injuries Among Domestic Violence Survivors.
ABC reports The biggest takeaways from the disability royal commission after four years of hearings.
Women’s Agenda writes The personal stories behind a shift to investing in single parents.
Crikey writes The vulnerable are still vulnerable. Jim Chalmers’ welfare boosts were not enough.
Ms Magazine writes Texas Case Shows How Abortion Bans Facilitate Domestic Abuse and Believing—or Not—E. Jean Carroll’s Story: Why it Matters.
Politico Magazine reports A Stunning Result in Trump’s Sexual Assault Trial.
Glamour magazine features Why can't we believe that "kind" and "gentle" men can be abusers and murderers?
New Naratif writes Fleeing from Violence, Facing Violence: The Challenge of Foreign Female Refugees in Indonesia.
The Montana Free Press profiles On the night shift with a sexual assault nurse examiner.
Human Rights First writes Marching for our rights; the colonial patriarchy in Northern Irelend continues old habits.
The Guardian explores ‘Infertility stung me’: Black motherhood and me.
AP News writes Trump’s sexual assault verdict marks a rare moment of accountability. And women are noticing.
The Press and Journal asks Prison sentences aren’t stopping violence against women, so what next?

Surveys and Consultations

CLOSING SOON: Deakin University and WESNET are inviting domestic and family violence workers to participate in a survey that is exploring the impacts of using home CCTV with victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. Participant’s will be provided an honorarium donation to their organisation.
The Attorney-General’s Department is seeking expressions of interest for membership of the next term of the Modern Slavery Expert Advisory Group (Expert Advisory Group). EOIs close at 9.00pm AEST on Friday 9 June 2023 and further details, including the EOI Form and Terms of Reference are available on the Attorney-General’s Department website.
Curtin University are seeking practitioners who have worked with mothers of children with disability who have experiences of FDV to participate in an online and anonymous survey, to help improve understandings of disability and FDV to enhance services available to mothers and their children with disability.
Researchers are currently seeking to interview individuals in Australia and New Zealand who have used a domestic violence disclosure scheme. All interview participants will receive a $100 voucher for their time.
ACOSS has put together an open letter from the community sector and allies urging the government to raise the rate of income support to reduce poverty and inequality in Australia.
Have you experienced tech-facilitated coercive control? Has a partner abused you using text messages or Facebook? Have they tracked you using GPS tracking apps? If you have experienced this type of abuse and sought safety and justice support, researchers from Monash, RMIT and WESNET would like to speak to you. Contact [email protected]
The University of Melbourne’s KODY Project - focussing on an all-of-family program in family violence & substance misuse - is currently cataloguing initiatives that lie at the intersection of DFV and AOD. If you are aware of relevant responses, programs, policies or plans, please email [email protected].

Calls and Submissions.

The National Children’s Commissioner is calling for submissions regarding Youth Justice and Child Wellbeing Reform across Australia. Input is due by 18 June 2023.
A parliamentary joint standing committee is conducting a NDIS General Issues Inquiry to identify broad systemic issues relating to the implementation, performance, governance, administration and expenditure of the NDIS. Submissions are due by 30 June 2023.
The Australian Parliament has launched an Inquiry into Australia's Human Rights Framework with submissions due by 1 July 2023.

Events

The No to Violence Conference 2023: Leading the change to break the cycle of violence will be held in Melbourne from 28 - 31 August 2023.

Resources and Guidelines

WESNET has been working with Tinder Australia to create a Dating Safety Guide that will help survivors and the general population with learning about the safety features available in the Tinder Dating App.
Women’s Legal Service NSW has published Women and Sexual Violence Law has information for women and girls who have been sexually assaulted, and those supporting them, including getting medical help and counselling after a sexual assault; reporting to the police; and legal process and rights.
Watch Randwick Council’s video on Affirmative Consent.
Listen to SBS’s Settlement Guide podcast and the episode What happens when you report non-consensual sex or rape in Australia?
The Australian Institute of Criminology has published How to implement online warnings to prevent the use of child sexual abuse material.
The UN Population Fund has issued Guidance on the Safe and Ethical Use of Technology to Address Gender-based Violence and Harmful Practices: Implementation Summary.
Our Watch has developed guidance material Growing with change: Developing an expert workforce to prevent violence against women.
The Fair Work Ombudsman has developed a number of resources aimed at helping workplaces access and support this leave including: comprehensive website information on the leave entitlements, including hypothetical examples to show the leave in practice; updated resources including the Employer Guide to family and domestic violence and a new Family and domestic violence leave fact sheet.
Our Watch’s latest resource - the Prevention toolkit for local government - shows the key role that local government across Australia can play in preventing violence against women.
The Respect@Work Council has published new guidelines on the use of confidentiality clauses in settling workplace sexual harassment cases, and good practice indicators to assist organisations to address workplace sexual harassment. Both sets of guidelines have been published on the Respect@Work website.
The Human Rights Commission, in collaboration with the Department of Treaties and Law (DTL) at the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has released an eLearning module about human rights in the context of emergencies which is available in both Lao and English.

Training and Education

WESNET is offering technology safety training for SADFV professionals, for dates and training descriptions please visit https://techsafety.org.au/training.
Applications are now open to study the Graduate Certificate in Domestic & Family Violence at RMIT University in 2023. Co-designed with a sector advisory committee, and a recognised qualification in the Victorian family violence sector - this Graduate Certificate is open to people who either have: 5-years relevant work experience, or an undergraduate degree.

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*Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of AWAVA or WESNET and are included as items of interest only.

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We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.